What's the Truth now, Al Gore?

As Washington DC is facing over 40 inches of snow in what will be its snowiest winter in recorded history, it seems like a good time to revisit global warming. The Drudge Report recently had a link to an article whose title caught my eye. This OpEd was written by columnist Margaret Wente of Canada’s The Globe and Mail which I have quoted or paraphrased extensively in the following. (The Bush quote and sarcasm, however, are all mine.) Oh yes, the name of the article? The Great Global Warming Collapse.

We all know about Climategate, the revelation about the emails on destroying, ignoring or manipulating data in order to support the global warming cause. Then there was the verdict that the tropical rain forests would be wiped out due to global warming. It turns out that the source of that claim, according to the Sunday Times of London, was an article by a pair of climate activists, one of whom worked for World Wildlife Fund (WWF), a left wing environmental activist group. This wasn’t the first or last time that global warming claims are based on data from activists with little to no scientific proof.

In 2007 the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the primary advocate and source on climate change, cautioned that the Himalayan glaciers could melt away as soon as 2035. A spokesperson for the WWF warned of dire results if a deal isn’t struck in Copenhagen to save the Himalayan glaciers. It turns out, however, that the glacier report, along with many other global climate “studies”, was completely fraudulent. Yet again, UN IPCC based their findings not on any impartial scientific analysis but on articles written by World Wildlife Fund activists. No, really? What a surprise….

The head of the IPCC learned of this shortly before the Copenhagen summit but ignored it. There might be a reason why Rajendra Pachauri, the IPCC head, dismissed any reports contradicting these claims. You see, he is also part of the Energy and Resource Unit division in New Delhi, which just happens to be the division that received millions in grants based on the premise of those melting glaciers in the Himalayan’s. Cosy arrangement, yes?

Eventually Pachauri retracted the claim regarding the Himalayan glacial meltdown, but he indicated that the error was an anomaly. He defended the IPCC saying that the attacks are political. But, as Wente wrote, the tide is definitely turning against Pachauri and global warming itself. Even Britain’s Greenpeace has called for Pachauri’s resignation and India is establishing its own group as they “cannot rely” on the IPCC. Ouch.

As the whole global warming foundation begins to crumble I can’t help but remember Al Gore’s famous statement: “The scientists are virtually screaming from the rooftops now. The debate is over! There's no longer any debate in the scientific community about this. But the political systems around the world have held this at arm's length because it's an inconvenient truth, because they don't want to accept that it's a moral imperative.”

Yet no one remembers this quote by then candidate Bush during a 2000 Presidential debate against Gore where Bush said: “Some of the scientists, I believe, haven’t they been changing their opinion a little bit on global warming? There’s a lot of differing opinions and before we react I think it’s best to have the full accounting, full understanding of what’s taking place.”

Although Bush defeated Gore in the election, Gore continued to win the debate on global warming. True to his word, over the past decade Gore and his global warming activists continued to silence any scientific debate which countered their stance on climate change. And anyone who questioned his views was labelled an obstructionist, a bad scientist and worse – a conservative right wing nut and some lost their grants and even their jobs by speaking against man made global warmth.

Now, however, in the face of all the damaging news that is beginning to surface, many climate scientists sense a sinking ship and are bailing out according to Wente. Some scientists and environmentalists are starting to admit that the IPCC is facing a crisis of credibility that makes the Climategate affair look like small change. One such scientist, Andrew Weaver, goes so far as to actually say that the climate body has crossed into the line of advocacy. No, really?

Wente concludes by saying that none of this is to say that global warming isn't real. But the strategy pursued by activists and the scientists desperate to prove global warming has turned out to be fatally flawed. By exaggerating the certainties, papering over the gaps, demonizing the skeptics and peddling tales of imminent catastrophe, they've discredited the entire climate-change movement. The political damage will be severe. The first casualty was Copenhagen where amidst the growing scandals it was apparent even before the first meeting that Copenhagen was never going to produce any agreements. It was a dead end and yet another wasted trip by Obama.

“The global warming movement as we have known it is dead,” wrote Walter Russell Mead, a Kissinger senior fellow on the Council of Foreign Affairs and professor at Yale. “It was done in by a combination of bad science and bad politics.” Or as Mr. Mead succinctly puts it in his blog on The American Interest: “Skeptics up, Obama down, cap-and-trade dead.” Yes!

(And I can't help but add that it may have taken ten years, but once again Bush has been proven right. Although this is probably too inconvenient of a truth for Al Gore to ever admit.)